More Kiwis left to live permanently overseas in October than in any month since January 2009, seasonally adjusted figures from Statistics New Zealand show.
Prime Minister John Key said he was not worried by the fact a greater amount were leaving, and that he did not see the situation as Kiwis 'voting with their feet'.
Total seasonally adjusted permanent and long term (PLT) departures of 6,610 in October was up from 6,200 in September, and 4,680 in October 2009.
However, permanent arrivals of migrants also rose, meaning net permanent and long term migration to New Zealand continued to trend upward in October.
This fit with economist expectations for numbers to keep increasing, putting at least some pressure on a slow housing market that has experienced a poor start to the spring selling season.
Seasonally adjusted figures show a net 680 permanent and long term migrants arrived in October, and although this was down from 1,030 in September, Statistics New Zealand’s trend series for the figures continued to rise from a low in May this year.
The monthly fall in net migration from September was due to more New Zealanders leaving for Australia, Stats NZ said.
There were 3,031 permanent or long-term departures from New Zealand to Australia during the month, up from 1,851 in October 2009, figures show. There were 2,681 New Zealand residents who left to live in Australia, up from 1,573 in October 2009 but down from 3,279 in the peak outflow month of October 2008.
However monthly departures across the Tasman were still down from the October month peak of 3,647 in 2008, Stats NZ said.
Overall annual figures show net PLT migration to New Zealand was 12,610 in the year to October, down from 18,560 the year before.
Unadjusted figures (see chart below) show net PLT migration to New Zealand of 1,700 in October, down from 3,004 in October 2009, but up from 1,487 in 2008.
ASB economist Jane Turner said Kiwis would continue to be lured to Australia as employment growth in the lucky country continued to outperform the recovery in New Zealand.
Turner said a subdued pace of net migration had contributed to underlying weakness in both housing demand and retail spending growth. "However, the recent stabilisation in the pace of monthly net migration is a promising sign, as it reduces some of the downside risk presented to these areas of the economy."
"The RBNZ will keep the OCR on hold while domestic economic growth remains subdued. We continue to expect the RBNZ to resume rate hikes in March 2011," she said.
PM Key not worried about those leaving
Prime Minister John Key said later on Monday he was not worried with the figures showing and increase in the amount of Kiwis leaving, and he did not think those doing so were 'voting with their feet'.
"I think they voted with their feet on Saturday night in Mana – they voted in support of the National government," Key told journalists at his weekly media briefing in Wellington.
"In terms of the overall migration numbers, I haven’t looked at the data for a few weeks but the last time I looked at it they were slightly higher in recent months, but overall significantly less than 2006, 2007," he said.
"There’ll always be some migration patterns. If you look in Australia, unemployment’s actually been rising – it rose to 5.4%. We’re a little bit higher obviously at 6.4%, but our trends look alright."
(Updates with PM comments, economist reaction, unadjusted monthly figures.)
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